Girolamo Frescobaldi

Around the start of the seventeenth century musical style in Europe underwent a remarkable transformation. During the first decades of the Baroque era, instrumental music underwent a deep transformation, the violin being central in the process. Composers, who were themselves violinists, expanded the technical limits of the instrument, developing a form of virtuosity with the bow that was very swiftly followed by an improvement of left-hand technique. The music for three violins and bass selected for this recording is typical of a XVIIth Century genre which disappeared rather quickly afterwards, although some remarkable works were still to be composed during the XVIIIth century. This selection, which borrows this repertoire to many different European countries, presents some of the most delighful Sonata's, ballets, chaconnes, fantasias, sinfonias and canon written.

It is tempting to see the history of music in Frescobaldi's time as a kind of Darwinian struggle between the conservative, rule-bound traditions of the sixteenth century and the freely expressive innovations of the early seventeenth century, or between the prima pratica of contrapuntal rigour and dry, intellectual structures, and the seconda pratica of the expressive madrigal, toccata and sonata with its emphasis on personal expression and freedom. For Frescobaldi, however, the two conflicting styles of composition amount to two facets of the same musical coin, which both shine brilliantly thanks to harpsichordist Hank Knox’s riveting performance on a magnificent 17th-century Italian instrument that is part of Kenneth Gilbert's collection of early harpsichords presently housed in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Chartres.

The spirit of the Baroque, which arose in Italy at the very end of the 16th century, was in the span of but a few decades to transform Western music and arts profoundly. Musically, the Renaissance had presided over the triumph of vocal polyphony. However, taking advantage of the freedom afforded by the newfound accompanied monody and the basso continuo, the Italians wished to confer on music an essentially expressive role while teasing with virtuosity. They broke with the balanced contrapuntal structures and created at the outset of the 18th century—alongside opera and cantata—the first true instrumental music, whose sudden appearance and speedy development seem today quite prodigious. The freedom and virtuosity of these melodic lines over a basso continuo are the musical fruits offered by the versatile and moving flutist Francis Colpron, with cellist Susie Napper, and harpsichordist and organist Alex Weimann.

Three important and characteristic instruments played a unique role in the endlessly rich repertoire of the early Italian baroque: the arpa doppia (double harp), the chitarrone (a kind of theorbo), and the chitarra spagnola (Spanish guitar). Whether playing virtuosic solo music, whether lending a simple continuo accompaniment, or joining voices in contrapuntal ensembles, these plucked and strummed strings create a spicy aural experience which relates to both senses of the Italian verb \0x2522pizzicare\0x2522 (to bite or pinch). Whether you are thinking of the plucking of a string, or the addition of \0x2522un pizzico di sale\0x2522 to a delicious meal, let Pizzico stand for the delight of all the senses.